Gen. John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the joint chiefs, was an advocate for classifying less in space. (File)
WASHINGTON: From almost his first day in office, Gen. John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued that over-classification was hurting the Pentagon, particularly when it comes to space. It’s no surprise, then, that Hyten was pushing to reveal a classified space capability just before his retirement.
As part of the first ever Breaking Defense Military Space Survey, we asked for feedback on the question of our respondents, drawn from inside the government, industry, and outside close observers. The results were notable: Just under 50% of respondents reported that threat information to space systems should be disclosed or unclassified more often, with 33% saying it should not and the remainder “not sure” of their stance. Those numbers remain about the same if broken down by either DoD officials or industry.
However, almost 58% of respondents said they believe that American offensive space-based capabilities should not be declassified, with only 23% calling for great transparency of those systems. Interestingly, defense officials are 10% more likely than outsiders to call for declassifying offensive space systems.
In the following clip, we asked our panel — Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation, Makena Young of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Rosalind Lewis of Aerospace Corp and Breaking Defense’s own space expert, Theresa Hitchens — to weigh in on the issue.
